El Lefty Malo

6.28.2005

Nationals Interest

The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call is reporting that certain Republican members of Congress are making veiled threats against major league baseball as it considers the various ownership groups vying for the Nationals. One group that has the GOP squirming is headed by George Soros, who has thrown considerable weight and cash behind Democrat candidates and progressive causes.

A competing group, no doubt more favored by the GOP, includes Fred Malek, a long-time Republican operative. In 1971, at President Nixon's request, Malek ran a head-count on Jews in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He later became part of W.'s group that took over the Texas Rangers in 1988.

Roll Call is subscription only, but this blog, affiliated with the American Prospect magazine (whose mission statement includes "reviving and rebuilding liberalism") has excerpts.

AFTERNOON UPDATE:

I've just dug Love Battery's Dayglo out of my CD pile for its first listen in quite a while. It's the Seattle version of what my man Elbo likes to call The Majesty of Rock -- the sheer brilliant energy of guitars and screaming and jumping around that you rarely find in these prepackaged, doublethink days of media consumption. Elbo first introduced me to The Majesty of Rock one evening by popping in the DVD of the Who's The Kids Are Alright. The lads make an appearance on the Rolling Stones' ill-fated "Rock n Roll Circus" TV show with a nuclear, epic "A Quick One" that leaves instruments destroyed and Mick Jagger crying for his mommy.

Another testament to the Majesty of Rock: PJ Harvey and her trio on Rid of Me. Her drummer's falsetto harmonies still send chills up my spine.

It doesn't have to be Rock, per se: Public Enemy's "Night of the Living Baseheads" does it for me every time.

What's a Lefty Malo?

It's an ancient Mexican baseball insult. Eighteen
years ago, I was pitching for my high school team in a tournament in Guadalajara, and two borrachos down
the third-base line heckled me with the insult "Lefty Malo," a.k.a., Bad Lefty.